The HEA Cafe

Archive for 2008

I have three books published in German.  You can see them at Amazon.de, and you can also see the covers at my website.  I was very happy when I saw the covers for Samt & Sabel (Sword and Velvet, aka Captain Sinister’s Lady) and Rache & Rosen (Revenge and Roses, aka Pirate’s Price) because they were so…tasteful.  Swords and flowing fabric and coins and daggers.  Even the titles were euphonious!

Then I got the cover for Im Aufruhr der Gefuhle. At first, I thought it was a mistake.  I used Google translation on the page and it said the title translated to “In the Turmoil of Emotions”.  It started out in life as “Smuggler’s Bride”.  I had a blank moment as I stared at the page.  What happened to my tasteful covers? Why was Julia falling out of her bodice? And most puzzling of all, why was there a killer pink flamingo looming in the background over Julia and Rand?

I contacted my editor in Germany at Random House.  She hemmed and hawed a bit via email, but then she said the first books weren’t selling as well as they’d hoped.  Apparently, with those oh-so-tasteful covers, no one knew they were romance novels.

At first, I wasn’t happy about this change in covers.  But as I stared at the busty babe and the half-naked dude, I began to smile.  Yes, my book is full of turmoiled emotions and passion.  Yes, there are definitely scenes where he’s bare chested and her bodice isn’t fully fastened.  And while there’s not a pink flamingo in this Florida set romance, there are lots of possums.  And I acknowledge it’s hard to get possums to equal passion.

So if this “old school” cover leaps out at my German readers and screams, “I’m a historical romance! Buy me!” then I’m all for it. I’m in the business of writing books.  I want to sell as many of my books as possible, and I want to make it as easy as I can for the reader to get her hands on my publications.  I still like my tasteful books, but if In the Turmoil of Emotions replenishes my 401K, then I guarantee I’ll be smiling all the way to the bank.

EBOOK!

What does Santa want for Christmas this year? The same thing you and I want…perfect gifts for all the people on our lists. One easy, inexpensive and earth-friendly gift appropriate for both men and women, young and old is a gift card for ebooks. Think of the convenience – for you and the giftee. You can send a GC from your computer to theirs without getting out of your pjs, and they can shop without changing out of theirs.
Then there’s the immediacy. Running late on Christmas Eve and still don’t have something for your sister who’s in Canada? Five minutes on the internet and her gift’s on its way, postage free. 
Struggling to find a green gift for your college-aged dog-sitter who’s iPhone is glued to his hand? According to an article this year in Publisher’s Weekly, a study coordinated by the Book Industry Study Group and the Green Press Initiative showed the U.S. publishing industry emits over 12.4 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, or about 8.85 pounds per book. Ebooks eliminate many of the costs associated with paper publishing and several sites can now send the book to an iPhone or digital readers like the Kindle or Sony.
Where can you get gift cards for ebooks? Check out Fictionwise (www.fictionwise.com ), Diesel eBooks (www.diesel-ebooks.com ), All Romance eBooks (www.allromanceebooks.com ), and Books On Board (www.ebooks.com ). Many ebook publishers also offer gift cards through their online stores.
So give yourself a break and give the folks on your gift list something they’ll love…ebooks.
 

Hopefully, I am not going to upset anyone celebrating Thanksgiving — Canada celebrated their in October, probably because our winter comes earlier than yours.  Anyway, yesterday I went shopping for the ingredients for my Christmas Pudding. Yep, to me the Christmas season always starts when I make Christmas pudding.  Stir up Sunday, the day for making Christmas puddings is the last Sunday before Advent, though I may get mine done a bit earlier.

In our family, everyone must stir the pudding before it is cooked, so I have to time it around when I know everyone will be available. And this is what makes it one of life’s simple pleasures, remembering stir up Sundays with my mum, when she remembered the same thing with her mum.
So what does this have to do with my title.  Well, while I was shopping for the stuff, it made me think how wonderful it is still to be part of a tradition that has been going on for so long, just like the American Thanksgiving. And since I write Regency historicals it is kind of nice to know that I am still doing something the same as my characters experienced.
I do wish you all the happiest of Thanksgivings with your families and friends.

And since this is a writers blog, I should mention that The Lady Flees Her Lord, should now be in a store near you.  Seeing your own book in a store is another of life’s pleasures (but not quite to simple).

So here come the holidays, and I am hopelessly behind schedule — again. My neighbors have already strung lights on their houses. People are flooding the malls. One woman I know is busy baking and freezing cookies — whereas I dread opening the mailbox because I know that any day now, some organized soul will send me that first holiday card.

And, of course, I’ve done nothing — no gifts, no cards, no decorating, no baking. The freezer is empty. The fall leaves still haven’t been raked. My house is torn apart from my unending painting project, with ladders and paint cans everywhere (update: the upstairs is finally done!).

Worse yet, I probably won’t do much. I’ve got a deadline to meet. My characters are stranded in the mountains — injured, in danger, far too aware of each other for comfort, and I’ve got to get them out. I can’t leave the house to go shopping when they’re consuming my thoughts.

The thing is, I LOVE the holidays. I love the music, the decorations. I have holiday dishes I never use, holiday recipes I never try out.

And every year I vow that this won’t happen again. Next year I’ll start shopping in September. I’ll get the cards addressed in October, have the baking done by Thanksgiving. And then in December, I’ll just sit back and relax — or finally host a holiday party with that fabulous homemade eggnog…

Instead, here I am with December looming, and I’m more behind than ever. The decorations are still in their boxes, the cards unbought. I seem to be spending my life in a hamster wheel, spinning wildly, unable to ever catch up. I’m now resigning myself to the knowledge that at least I won’t have a lot of post-holiday clean up to do…

So how about you? Are you hopelessly behind like I am? Or are you one of those organized souls? If you’d like to commiserate (or offer holiday tips), I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Oh – and I forgot to mention my greatest distraction: To Protect a Princess is on the shelves! I’ll be signing both of my Crusaders books (Heart of a Thief and To Protect a Princess) with Nora Roberts/JD Robb, Kathryn Caskie, Elaine Fox, and Dolly Nasby on December 6th, 1-3pm in Boonsboro, Maryland, so if you’re in the area, please stop by! For more information, or to get signed copies via a virtual booksigning go to: ttpbooks.com.

And happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Nope, nothing about being sick. Nothing about upholstery. This month my topic is book covers and, in my case, the re-issuance of my backlist with new cover art. Cover art specifically designed for romance readers.

I write science fiction romance and initially Bantam shelved me in science fiction. That meant–to their art department–that my covers required someone with a weapon and some kind of spaceship or space station in the background on my covers. When Bantam decided to move me over to the romance aisles, they felt new cover art–”rebranding” is what they called it–was required.

They felt they needed to acheive and/or address three things:

1) The covers had to have a clear image of romance

2) The covers had to have a clear image of science fiction

3) The covers had to be uniform in appearance so as to create a “Linnea Sinclair” brand.

This turned out to be far more difficult than we thought. For one thing, the art department’s idea of romance trended toward erotica (headless women in plunging leather bustiers, fishnet stockings and spike heels being caressed by headless men with naked torsos and very tight pants). I don’t write erotica and my agent and I both held firm in our stand that to put something of that level of enticement on my covers when it’s not also between the pages would inevitably create reader-disconnect. Not to mention reader-annoyance.

No one in any of my books wears spike heels or leather bustiers (I write mostly military settings–those kinds of outfits would be beyond ludicrous on a starship.)

We settled on disembodied heads (all those headless covers create a plethora of leftover heads, I’m guessing) usually against some kind of starfield or planet with a possible spaceship or three thrown in.

For the most part, I think they came out pretty dang good.

As for the branding part, they did two things: they put my name in large font and they used a monochromatic color scheme. (I’m a little concerned we will eventually run out of colors, especially when they tried to hit me up with hot pink for my February 2009 release, Hope’s Folly. I do not write hot pink. Do. Not.)

While I think the colors and font certainly create a brand, I’m also concerned it may create the feel of “series” where not all the books are. Gabriel’s Ghost and Shades of Dark are books #1 and #2 in the Dock Five universe. Hope’s Folly is book #3 but can stand alone. The rest are all stand alones but I fear that is something that may cause confusion.

Not that there’s much I can do about it. And they are eye-catching, which is a huge plus.

You can check them out here in a short promo video or browse them below. (It appears this version of WordPress doesn’t permit video embedding… or I’d have done so.)

 

The re-branded books were supposed to hit the shelves in August but in reality are just now being unpacked at most bookstores and making it to the shelves. So in your wanderings, should you see them, do drop me a note and let me know your opinions. You should be able to find them not only in romance but in end-caps in Borders and B&N.

~Linnea

www.linneasinclair.com

//interstellar adventure infused with romance//